Dr Pepper Snapple Group was a leading decliner within the consumer goods sector, falling 68 cents (-1.5%) to $45.08 on average volume.

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group ( DPS) pushed the Consumer Goods sector lower today making it today's featured Consumer Goods laggard. The sector as a whole closed the day up 0.2%. By the end of trading, Dr Pepper Snapple Group fell 68 cents (-1.5%) to $45.08 on average volume. Throughout the day, 1.4 million shares of Dr Pepper Snapple Group exchanged hands as compared to its average daily volume of 1.2 million shares. The stock ranged in price between $44.79-$45.39 after having opened the day at $45.07 as compared to the previous trading day's close of $45.76. Other companies within the Consumer Goods sector that declined today were: S&W Seed Company ( SANW), down 8.2%, Zuoan Fashion ( ZA), down 7.1%, SGOCO Group ( SGOC), down 5.7%, and Northern Technologies International ( NTIC), down 5.6%.

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Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. engages in the ownership, manufacture, and distribution of non-alcoholic beverages in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Dr Pepper Snapple Group has a market cap of $9.51 billion and is part of the food & beverage industry. The company has a P/E ratio of 15.7, below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Shares are up 3.4% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday. Currently there are four analysts that rate Dr Pepper Snapple Group a buy, one analyst rates it a sell, and six rate it a hold.

TheStreet Ratings rates Dr Pepper Snapple Group as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth, increase in net income, notable return on equity and reasonable valuation levels. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.